Voice mail systems allow telephone callers to leave recorded messages for a called party when the called party is unavailable. Whether the voice mail system is deployed with a private branch exchange (PBX) switch or with a central office telephone switching system, one mail box is assigned for each telephone extension. A typical answering machine is a special case of a voice mail system in which equipment for a single voice mail box is deployed at the extension rather than at the switch. For voice mail box systems ,which are based on a continuous magnetic tape, such as conventional answering machine-type voice mail systems, the messages are played back sequentially. It is very difficult for the user to select one of the messages to hear first and a prior message to hear next. In voice mail systems where messages are stored digitally on a magnetic disk, they may be easily retrieved in random order. Some such systems play for the user a list or summary of all of the messages in the mail box and allow the user to select, after hearing the list or summary, which of the messages should be played.